What Are The Gobshites Saying These Days?

Welcome back to our weekly survey of the state of Our National Dialogue which, as we know, is what Count Basie would have come up with, had he composed Jumpin' At The Woodchipper.

Before we begin, and as a means of helping you in your next Gobshites Fantasy Draft, the good folks at FAIR would like you to know that many of your favorite stars from the news end of what's on the electric teevee machine are doing quite well, thank you very much, and do not need to sell apples from atop steam grates. Something to keep on hand the next time the Dancin' Master preaches him a little austerity from the veranda down on the Vineyard.

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Speaking of which, much deep thought was given to the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial. In fact, NBC News correspondent Kerry Sanders was thinking so deeply that he fell right into a open manhole. Look out!

This was a jury of six, six women, five of them mothers. Five of them white; one of them described by the prosecutor as either black or Hispanic. Two of them, gun owners. After they left, outside there was a fair amount of noise outside the courthouse that could not be heard up on the fifth floor. The jurors did not hear that. The rally was primarily, at those who were most vocal were those who were disappointed with the outcome, complaining that they felt that the system had not delivered a verdict that they wanted.

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Actually, the system had not delivered the justice "they" wanted. In fact, the system didn't even want to give "them" a trial at all. The system had to be pressured into providing even an opportunity for "them" to get the justice "they" wanted. This is not a minor distinction.

Savannah Guthrie then came along to explain how the system simply worked here.

And ultimately, this came down to not any particular peculiarity of Florida law, but basic self-defense principles that are enshrined in every state in this country. Which is, look, if somebody fears reasonably that they are in danger of great bodily injury or harm, it's the prosecution's burden basically to disprove self-defense. This comes down to that concept of reasonable doubt. It's not necessarily that jurors, by their verdict, are saying, "We believe George Zimmerman acted in self-defense." What they're saying is, "We don't believe that the prosecutors proved he didn't act in self-defense." And that's basically what this verdict comes down to.

Yeah, because every juror is an automaton programmed only to follow The Law. Forgive me if I think this verdict "comes down to" a helluva lot more than what the prosecution did or did not prove.

But the real prevaricatin' didn't get started until the Dancin' Master bailed on the uncomfortable Dead Black Kid talk and got back to "politics and the war of words here in Washington," and Rich (Sparkle Pants) Lowry brought the high-heat bullshit on immigration.

Sure. But I-- I think the Senate bill is fundamentally flawed. If you believe the C.B.O. analysis and believe their optimistic assumptions that the enforcement in this bill will actually happen the way it's written, which never happens, we're still going to have, depending on your estimate, 6, 7, 8 million more illegal immigrants here in ten years.

Actually, the CBO says there will be about eight million fewer "illegal immigrants" here by 2023. Lowry got his figure from Rush Limbaugh.

RICH LOWRY: --on immigration, the-- according to C.B.O., unemployment will be higher when this bill passes between 2014--

Nope. CBO says there will be no effect on the unemployment rate after 2020.

RICH LOWRY: Wages will be lower--

Only because the new workers will not be making as much as they would be if they were running the monkey farm at the National Review.

But the subject got back to the trial very soon, and Sparkle Pants found himself obligated to uphold one of NR's founding principles -- "Why Are Those People Always So Angry, Anyway?"

But the more we learned in the trial, the more clear it was that the police judgment initially was probably correct, and that this was a case of self-defense. And certainly, it was always absurd to compare this case to Emmett Till or the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, as the reverend did. That was always putting way too much social and political baggage on what was just a terrible tragedy.

Anybody want to guess which side Rich Lowry and the National Review would have been arguing in the Emmett Till case?

Moving on to This Week With The Clinton Guy Shocked By Blowjobs, Dan Abrams was there to reassure us all, especially us white people who wonder why an unarmed kid ends up getting iced by a wannabe cop for the crime of being where the wannabe cop thought he didn't belong, that the system worked and that the law is an ass.

Now there are two separate questions here that we're discussing. And I think it's important to distinguish them. One is a sort of broad societal right and wrong, and what is wrong with our society? And that is a fair question to ask. But that is a different question than talking about what happened in that courtroom. Because if you watch that trial every day the way that I did, you do lose the sort of big picture and you get very focused on the little picture...

They also hosted Mark Leibovich, who's written a new book that threatens to make him the Julia Phillips of the Beltway, and he was quizzed at least in part by Maggie Haberman of Tiger Beat On The Potomac, who would like to keep her job, thank you very much.

STEPHANOPOULOS: The criticism of Politico.

HABERMAN: I mean, I think that was sort of a wet fettuccini [sic] slap as opposed to a punch. I'm really proud of Politico. I like Mike Allen a lot. I think that we have made driving the conversation and winning the morning as part of our ethos. And I don't think that comes as a surprise. I don't think Mark thinks that's a surprise.

Say what you will about vapid horse-race coverage and the pursuit of shiny, worthless objects, at least it's a ethos.

And then, over on CBS, god bless him, former Hernando Cortes embed Bob Schieffer had Bibi Netanyahu on to monger some war against Iran. But the true high-larity didn't begin until Bob handed the events of the week over to a combination of Our Lady Of The Magic Dolphins, who really is Terribly Concerned about it all, and the boss jock of TBOTP, who saw a chance to Win The Morning.

JOHN HARRIS, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, POLITICO: Well, it is like Simpson in that it leaves a lot of people confounded, I'd say dumbfounded, and some people frankly have ash in their mouth over it. But I suspect it may also be like Simpson in that people, as emotional as they get, do reserve a certain detachment, a certain coolness. They understand the criminal justice system, as mad as they get. I remember at the time of Simpson in '95, people worried there was going to be huge explosions of anger, it was going to rock the system. Actually it didn't, people brush off and move on. So we'll see if that's what happens in this case.

Idle question: does it always have to come back to OJ? Not so idle question: could the boss jock be any more condescending?Not unless he were la Noonan, who managed to turn the shooting of an unarmed boy into one of those American Fairy Tales that the canaries orbiting her head tweet softly into her ears.

Which means it will be political. And we're trying to talk about justice and the doing of justice, not political stuff. We try as much as we can to be keep them apart. It seems to me, you know, I was one of those the past few weeks watching cable TV, constantly looking for Egypt, because I wanted to know what was happening and what appeared to be a second revolution. Instead it was the Zimmerman trial. Three weeks, talented lawyers, everybody alert and listening, only six jurors, who had a lot of responsibility on them. It seems to me in our own awkward American way we attempted to get something like justice, came up with a decision I think probably to go beyond that will seem a highly political choice as opposed to a choice in pursuit of justice.

The "doing of justice" is one of those Noonerian phrases that don't seem to have much to do with the "speaking of English," but never mind. And, the pursuit of justice has nothing to do with political choices. That's why "to establish justice" is mentioned in the Preamble to that most apolitical of all documents that's laid out there in the National Archives. Hell, at least it's an ethos.